


what you can't protect

by Areiton



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Diego Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Drug Use, Gen, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, POV Second Person, Protective Diego Hargreeves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 14:39:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18054422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton





	what you can't protect

You keep track of where he is. 

You have a little note in your phone that tells you how long he's been in rehab this time, how long til he's out. 

You dread the day he's out. 

When you were younger, you tried to cut him off at the source, bully bribe and beg dealers to stop selling to him. 

~~ It worked, until it didn’t.  ~~

You remember the day--the first time--you heard on the police scanner that they’d found a male, OD’ed, dead on site. 

You remember how you couldn’t breathe through your panic, the gut churning fear because sometimes, sometimes, you lose track of him, can’t keep track of him, and you thought, truly believed, as you raced across town and threw yourself into that fucking hospital, that he was dead. 

You know what it’s like, to lose a sibling, the numbing grief and burning rage, and sometimes you think he uses just to avoid that. 

~~ Sometimes you want to ask if he sees Ben.  ~~

~~ You never do.  ~~

You keep track of where he is. 

Because the others, they all left. Vanya and her quiet normal life funded by the stories she had no right to sell, Luther and his fucking mission to the moon. Allison, who ran so far and so thoroughly, you know she was running from you. 

Ben and Five--they’ve been lost so long, you have learned to live with it, live with the pain and familiarity of it. 

You can’t protect them, your siblings who scattered and ran, who don’t  _ want  _ to be protected, and you think, you do a bad job of protecting the world-- ~~Dad would be so disappointed, but Mom, Mom never was.~~

But you can do this. 

You count the days, and you dread them, and you keep track of where he is. 

One day, you think you’ll be too late. 

You’ll hear the call--male, overdosed. Dead on arrival. 

And you’ll run, like you have so often before, headlong through the city you want to save, that doesn’t fucking  _ care _ if you do, and you’ll find him, pale and dark and tattooed and beautiful in that wild, chaotic way you never could be, but loved in him. 

You can’t save your brother. ~~You can’t save anyone~~. 

But when he destroys himself--you’ll know. 

You’ll take him home. 

 


End file.
